selfmachine
by FlightOrFight
Summary: What would happen if a Sky couldn't feel anything at all? Will he be able to have Elements if he can't form attachments? Tsuna doesn't know but he wants to at least try. Arco27


Schizoid personality disorder: characterized by a lack of interest in social relationships, a tendency towards a solitary or sheltered lifestyle, secretiveness, emotional coldness, detachment, and individuals may be unable to form intimate attachments to others.

 **Selfmachine**

There's a name on his lips, accompanied with a number on top of white, soft mittens. _Due, Sette._ Familiar, even if not in the right language. And even then it took him a couple weeks to piece it together. _Tsu, Na_. It's the Japanese for the numbers on the mittens. His name, or so he thinks. It sounds right, and he can now at least give something to others to call him.

He doesn't know who he is and that's the sad truth, but not uncommon. Not in these parts.

At least he's lucky, he thinks. He's been found by a doctor, or what passes as one around here. He doesn't talk the common language, Italian, really well. His accent says that much. But he is kind in a place where kindness is seen as a weakness, with hard edges that are fraying a little too fast for Tsuna to invest much emotion in him. Not that he feels them. Emotions, that's it, but that's a conversation for another day.

"It all depends if it's shattered or it's a clean break," the doctor who has never told his name says, grabbing the leg of them man whimpering under him, pants cut open to see the wound more clearly. "This is a clean one, see?"

"How—How long will it take, doc?" the brother of the patient asks, shuffling from where he's standing in the kitchen, the living room too small for them all to fit in.

The doctor looks up with an annoyed expression. "'m teaching something important here, see? Now shut up and bring me more water." He looks at him. "What do you need for cases like this, kid?"

Tsuna doesn't even think about it. "S-Something stiff. For splints."

"And something to make a cast. Which we don't have but for that are the pretty flames. Can you do it?"

He nods as he watches the doctor order him with a gesture to grab the man who is curling tighter with each second it passes, his breathing coming labored and short. Tsuna grabs both arms, his putrid smell no more pleasant than it was half an hour ago. But he's used to it. People don't smell nice in the streets of Naples.

The doctor starts talking again, soothing voice made to distract the man as he inspects the break, offering reassurance that seems to work. Tsuna studies him: his gestures, his tone and expression, memorizing everything as he does the lectures he gives him. It makes the man in response twitch less, fingers slowly unclenching as he realizes the doctor is not doing anything yet. His jaw loosens from where he's biting the leather of the belt.

Then the doctor realigns it and the man screams silently, a sob wrecking his frame and making the pain worse.

"Done, see?" The doctor grabs the bandages and the wood the brother provided, tying it tightly. He looks up at him. "The cast now, kid."

Tsuna nods again and concentrates. The indigo flames are not his primary or secondary but they're safer to use if not harder. He slowly makes a cast appear around the leg. It's simple, no texture or deep color, just enough flames for it to exist. The man whimpers but he knows when to stay silent, too. Tsuna brushes his forehead with a hand, subtly using some of his orange flames to settle him. He can't take the pain away but he can at least offer some comfort. He doesn't have to do it but doing it makes him feel more human, alive.

"We're done here. Tell Luca I want the medicine by this week."

"Yes, doc. Thanks, doc."

The doctor gives the brother a look before his gaze returns to Tsuna. "Well, kid?"

Tsuna stands up, giving both of the men in the apartment a shy smile before walking to where the doctor is already moving to the door.

-x-

His new life starts with him sprawled over an alley, hoody protecting him from the harsh winds and soft mittens on his hands. They hide calloused hands with rings on them. What he's grown to call 'the alien living inside his head' tells him to hide them as soon as he can and with fumbling fingers he finds a thin collar around his neck where he puts them in.

He doesn't remember his old life, fragments of a sweet smile and brown straight hair come to the forefront of his mind, a couple of faces floating next to it.

Most people would have panicked, overwhelmed by the terror, but strangely enough there's only a faint anxiety inside of him, like there's something that itches but he doesn't know where to scratch. It's maddening sometimes but better than what it could have been.

He stands up after a while of blankly looking at the dirty wall, only to fall immediately on his face when he trips over thin air. The action feels familiar but where the panic doesn't exist before now it does. He can hear the cock of a gun inside his head and he instantly sits up and straightens himself, looking wildly to his surroundings.

It's nice, it makes him feel _something_ inside his chest.

With a smile that's more out of reflex than any real feeling, he starts walking. He doesn't know where to go but doesn't let that bother him as he looks around. There's graffiti on the walls in a language that comes slowly to him but it's still somewhat familiar.

That's when he meets the doctor.

He's a thin man, sandy blond hair on a tired face with too many age lines. He doesn't have a coat that would show his status but he's wearing a nice clean blue sweater with brown pants and comfortable black shoes. He's the typical grandpa one would picture when they see a middle class kid.

However, in that first time he doesn't think about that. He just sees his hands covered in blood and that they're in the insides of some crying boy.

"Wha—"

"Silence." The man barely spares him a glance, brows furrowing. "Or I'll kill you."

He doesn't think, he moves forward, fist pulled back and ready with something flaming (He's not paying attention to his flaming fist, not now. Not when a kid needs him) when a girl, a little older than the boy steps forward. She's wearing a too big shirt and a too loose pair of shorts, thin but determined. Red hair familiar in a way that stops him.

"The doctor told you to shut up, so be quiet."

He stops, something inside him telling him to take another look at what is happening. He realizes then that the man's wearing those medical gloves he remembers faintly seeing other times. They're not inside the kid's stomach but stitching the skin there. The boy is crying and pain but it seems to be more because of the pain of the wound than anything else.

"Come here brat and keep up the torch that I can't see a thing."

"Yes, doctor." She moves to where she was before, behind of the man, one hand holding the torch he's just seeing them. Her hands are trembling, however and it doesn't seem to be helping if the sigh the man is letting out is anything to go by. He looks at him again, his gaze lowering to his orange flaming fist before locking gazes again. "Care to make yourself useful and help with the light?"

It takes a second, doubt marring across his face before he wipes it, flames dying out with a thought. He moves forward.

-x-

He remembers the first time he killed a person. Two months had already passed since he appeared without memories. It was a woman in her thirties, pretty in a modest way, with long auburn hair and slanted green eyes. He was learning about flames, about their properties that week, he didn't know their names in Italian but knew them in Spanish. Activation they called the _Sol_ flames, the yellow flames, his secondary ones and the ones that heal. She had a cut on her arm, made with a piece of glass. She only needed a bandage but the doctor often used his own _Sol_ flames to heal them as they were cheaper than the bandages. He used them for smaller ones but he wasn't a stronger flame user.

Not like Tsuna was.

The doctor was busy and had asked him to keep pressure while he searched for stitches, but Tsuna wanted to help, wanted to feel useful. He had been training with flames and knew how to ignite them even if he didn't fully understand how to use them.

"I'll just use my flames," he said, knowing she was as into the Mafia as the doctor was. Everyone in these parts kind of were even if they didn't know about flames, they knew weird things surrounded the underworld and knew to keep quiet.

He didn't hear an answer and that was his downfall. He thought the silence was answer enough as the doctor was the silent type on a good day. So with a flick of his hand he lit up his hand, yellow flames covering his palm. His head started ringing in that annoying way it sometimes did, but the doctor barely had medicine for the patients, he didn't have any to spare for Tsuna and his headaches so he ignored it.

"It'll be fine," he said she flinched away. In the same soothing voice he'd heard coming from the doctor. "They're not hurting me. They won't hurt you either."

She slowly nodded when she saw his hand not blistering, answering back in her broken Italian, like his own.

He pressed his palm against her skin, saw how the cut slowly closed and her smile appeared.

Then it all went to hell.

Eruptions started growing on her skin as her eyes grew wide. She screamed but it came more like a broken cry, a gurgle. She spat blood and then her skin started peeling and healing at an incredible rate.

The doctor entered just in time to see her falling to the ground, body convulsing as he moved closer, his own yellow flames on his hands.

It was traumatizing but he felt nothing as she saw her slowly dying, a faint detachment creeping in his insides, not cold but not warm either. There wasn't panic inside him even as his fingers curled into fist. He felt only a morbid curiosity he knew was wrong.

 _Shouldn't I feel something_? he asked himself but no answer was forthcoming, the ringing in his head no longer there as he saw the doctor try to save a woman with familiar green eyes and sweet voice.

He was punched on the cheek when it was over, it was weak but it still hurt. He realized then that his hands were shaking and he was crying, but he felt no sadness or remorse. He felt empty and like a monster.

He wanted to feel horrified but he couldn't.

He couldn't feel.

"What are you doing awake, kid?"

Tsuna doesn't look up from where his chin is resting against his folded legs. "I couldn't sleep."

"Dreaming about that girl?"

He shakes his head. The doctor looks at him dubiously, eyeing the bags under his eyes. "Sure about it? It's normal to feel that way about losing a patient. I did the same when I lost my first couple, was kind of naïve back then. Thought I could save everyone."

A bitter chuckle escapes him surprising the old man. "That's the problem. I don't feel bad."

The doctor gives him a curious look but it doesn't hold any judgment. "You feel good about it then?"

His head leaves his head. "Of course not! It's just—I mean—"

"Then it's okay. While you don't take pleasure of taking a life it's all good. _Nada malo_."

Tsuna looks down. "But isn't weird? I mean, yesterday I was playing with Domenica, the girl from across the street. She was telling jokes and I was laughing and laughing but I didn't found anything funny. I didn't felt—Well, how does happiness even feel?" He crosses even more firmly around him. "How does sadness feels like? I should know about them, something tells me I should, but…"

The doctor snorts. "All of this because you couldn't laugh at a girl's jokes? Happiness is not so easy, kid."

"I don't feel anger either. I should've felt anger when those men tried to rape the daughter of Marco, but I just felt… apathy."

"You still helped."

"I did," he says with a slow nod. "But it wasn't because of some righteous fury or something. I just did it because—well, I couldn't just leave her there."

"There you've it, see? You're not a bad guy."

Tsuna frowns. He doesn't how to explain he hadn't helped because some moral compass, it was more because something in him said others would be disappointed in him if he hadn't intervene it, how he wouldn't be able to look at them if he hadn't done nothing.

"I still feel empty," he says instead.

"Then search something to fill whatever is empty inside you. You said you don't remember anything, right? Maybe it's that. You just need to form connections. Don't sweat it, kid."

-x-

The doctor dies two years after he takes him in. He doesn't have anything to give, to leave behind but a large bag with a medical kit, enough to help but never to do more than offer a chance. Tsuna doesn't know about medicaments or diagnosis but he knows how to stitch a bullet gun and his hands are steady enough. He's a passable nurse even if he doesn't hold a candle to a real one.

He still doesn't feel anything.

His mentor, the closest thing to a parent, a male role model, is dead and he doesn't feel anything. Not sadness or fury for those who killed him to control the sector's influence.

Nothing.

He just wants to leave the place.

-x-

He doesn't know how exactly it starts. His legend as the Indigo Sky, he means, the one who helps those who think they can't be saved. The one who's always willing to lend an ear to those who need it.

(They don't know the reasons behind. They whisper his name with the awe befitting for a Sky but they're also wary as soon as they see the Indigo flames alongside the orange ones, the flames of deception.)

He's wanted for his strength, famiglie setting up numerous traps just to catch him, all to be disappointed when he never shows, as if told by someone beforehand. They suspect Viper, the most known Information Broker of Europe (Some even said, the Greatest), but for all their bark, no one is quite ready to confront the powerful Mist.

(Tsuna knows Viper, gained a favor from them which he immediately exchanged for his secrecy. So no one knows his name even if they know his eyes are of the color of his orange flames and they're as cold as ice.)

They know he always introduces himself as a guy without emotions, with a hand scratching the back of his head, always sheepish. He's clumsy except for those times he fights. He always appears with a different color of hair, sometimes repeating but never to the same person. He's young but not too much.

He's alone, but sometimes he picks strays.

-x-

He's in Spain when he first hears his nickname. He's been keeping in the Mafia since he discovered his flames in fear of attracting the Vindice for exposing that world and he's been living with a man called Francisco for three days already, helping him to search his fiancé who's been kidnaped. He's tall, the tallest guy he's met so far and harsh, but all the times he speaks about his fiancé, there's a small smile on his lips he tries to smoother. They found her the day before and it's like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Monica, his fiancé, is currently out, buying groceries for dinner as Tsuna experiments with cooking.

"Are you the Indigo Sky?" he asks when Tsuna is trying to cook a paella with a Mist spoon on his hand.

"Huh?"

"You know, that Sky and Mist kid who always appear when someone needs help."

Tsuna slowly blinks. "… I don't think so?"

"It's a rumor that started almost two years ago about a kid with orange eyes like yours."

Tsuna makes a mirror appear. "Um. They do are orange."

"You also said: 'Sorry if I look sometimes cold, I don't emote.'"

He makes the mirror disappear and looks him with a dull expression. "Well, yeah. Because I don't emote."

"Who even says that? A psychopath that's who."

"Hey, hey. It's not my fault I don't feel anything well. I prefer to flaunt it than break some hearts."

"See, that's not something a coldhearted person would say."

Tsuna grumbles about not being a coldhearted person, just unable to emote. But he doesn't say anymore. He's learned to accept that others wouldn't understand his weird unfeeling being without being skeptic, so he doesn't bother trying anymore. He just says it because some people had tried to harmonize with him before and he couldn't do anything but disappointed them when they learned he's incapable of forming deep connections. That's why he always greet people like that, so he can say 'I told you so' without feel bad.

Not that he ever feels bad, but that's how the saying goes.

"So Indigo Sky? That's how they're calling me?"

"Yes. The weird kid too old for not being with a guardian."

"Geez. That must attract a lot of people."

Francisco nods. "You're lucky we didn't sell you out."

Tsuna looks warmly at him. He knows it's a joke, the being inside his head tells him so. That's why he doesn't tense or anything.

"Yeah, lucky."

-x-

He likes to trip on thin air. It's not something he announces to the whole world as he knows it's not productive when people he's going to do a minor surgery on see him trip. They then start doubt his skill to even do a simple stitch. Not that he blames them but, well, it just feels so _nice_.

He actually feels _something_ when he trips. Not quite panic, as he's still capable to feel that, but something familiar. It makes him feel warm. Which may be why people always look at him weird those couple times they have catch him rubbing his cheek against the floor, but one can't please everyone.

It's also the same he feels with extreme sports. They're dangerous and while there's no warmth like when he trips, the fear he feels is almost innocent so even when he's standing with shaking legs he still feels all nice and that.

Oh well, what can he do?

(Sometimes he scares himself)

-x-

The first time someone tries to harmonize with him is quite innocent. Her name is Chistina and she is thirteen and a bit of a hothead, with an incredible focus when something interests her. In this case, being medicine. She learns all he knows in four months even if she doesn't have the skill he's gained with the years. She always blushes cutely when he sits on couches and sprawls like a big cat, flames out and warm around him.

He doesn't think much about it. Doesn't quite know how harmonization should feel even if he does know a bit about the theory about it. So when she reaches with her flames, shyly touching his with care, Tsuna answer curiously back.

The detachment he usually feels is gone as they feel each other, as he feels her emotions, her hidden hope. He doesn't to press back, but he's curious and a bit hopeful himself as it's the first time he's felt something that's not that void of apathy inside him, even if they're secondhand emotions. He feels her care for him, her love (or what he thinks is love? The voice inside his head agrees that is love so there's that), her hope.

Is nice.

But again, it's over far too soon.

He opens his eyes, realizing he's closed them for some time now and looks at her. She's crying, looking at him with a betrayed expression.

"You—I thought you—We…" She doesn't sniff, but her eyes are weirdly shiny. Tsuna feels kind of bad (not really), but that morbid curiosity that made him look as he accidentally killed a woman appears. "… You don't care about me?"

Oh. So the emotion thing was two-way.

"Um." He looks from one side to another, ducking his head a little as he tries to think in an answer. He wants to say he does care about her but he's always suck at lying. "Is not that I don't care about you, Chris." _Is that I don't care about anything._ "I'm just… not well. I—I don't know how to care about someone. I' sorry."

The stubbornness he saw the first time they met appears again. "Can't I help you then? Maybe I can—"

"No, sorry," he answers immediately, perhaps a bit too fast. "Is not that I don't appreciate it. It's that… well."

He doesn't know if he wants his emotions back, if there's a cure that is. He's lived almost five years without them and with all the problem they seem to make to everyone, he'd kind of glad he doesn't have them. It's true he can't love anyone like that but he doesn't hate anyone either. He doesn't feel anger or sadness and while that means no happiness for him, well, he's kind of accepted them. It was hard and he kind of felt like shit those first months after he realized he didn't have them, he's learned to… tolerate himself as he can't quite love himself.

He does feel good, positive about himself as person.

(He sometimes does feel like a monster in human flesh.)

"It's not something you can't heal," he finishes lamely.

The day after, he leaves Christina on a Famiglia he knows is not that bad and will help her study more about medicine, about what she likes. They don't see each other again.

-x-

A man in an Iron Hat appears on his small room in France, eight years after he first appeared in some black alley in Naples. His head rings when he meets him, but not in the way it does when there's imminent danger. He doesn't know when he started following, but the why is easy after he detects the powerful Mist flames he carries, even more powerful than Viper's.

He's wary even before he's even said a word, but not afraid. There's a quiet determination burning inside him as they meet gazes. His flames already smoking in preparation to light up.

But then he shatters it all with a phrase.

"Good morning, Tsunayoshi."

 _Tsunayoshi?_

 _Is that my name?_ he wants to ask but doesn't. He's smart enough to not play in his hands even when he possible looks like he's too surprised already. Because it feels familiar. It feels _right_ to hear that name and associate it with him.

"Who are you?" he says instead.

"You may call me Chekerface." He rolls a clear pacifier around his hand. "I've come to offer you a job."

-x-

A/N1: Okay, I don't know what this is about? I mean, I'll continue to write two more chapters or maybe just one, but I honestly don't know what was going on in my head when I wrote this. I heard that song 'SelfMachine' by 'I Blame Coco' and then this just appeared.

For the curious ones: No, Tsuna will not suddenly regain his emotions even if there's a reason why he's like that. What he has is what can be called 'Schizoid personality disorder', so yeah I'll dwell into the 'not feelings' thing later.

A/N2: After hearing the song I asked to myself, if that thing makes one unable to form attachments with people/stuff then what would happen with a Sky? Who is all about the attachment and that


End file.
